Songs from Walnut Canyon

By Ken Lauter

SONGS FROM WALNUT CANYON brings the reader into a world of
natural beauty, geological wonder, history, and myth. Most of them actually composed in the canyon, these poems are songs of the present that evoke songs past— in the daily lives and music of those who once inhabited the canyon, and in the voices of Crow, the Corn God, Flute Player, and Last Singer. Walnut Canyon is an extraordinary place. This book attempts both to honor that fact and to suggest why it is.

The companion book, GRAND CANYON DAYS, is also available
from Xlibris.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781462814220

Ken Lauter

Ken Lauter studied with Donald Hall (US Poet Laureate 2006-07) at the University of Michigan, and his work has been compared to Robert Lowell’s. Distinguished poet William Meredith has said that Ken’s poetry displays “a splendid and various gift.” His previous books are: The Other Side, Before the Light (both from BkMk Press, University of Missouri at Kansas City), The Ghosts – Notes from a Field Study, Songs from Walnut Canyon, Grand Canyon Days, Searching for Mr. Stevens, The Structure of the Body, and First Kingdoms – Poems from a Vanishing Landscape (all from Xlibris). He has also written several plays, including The Dancing Apsárás, or Captain Willard’s Blues, a prequel/sequel to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. He has received a Hopwood Award for poetry, an American Academy of Poets Prize, and a Shubert Playwriting Fellowship. He has taught literature and creative writing at four universities and also worked as a mayor’s aide, a university administrator, and a grass-roots environmental activist. Ken is married to poet and neuroscientist Dr. Judy Lauter, author of How Is Your Brain Like a Zebra? — A New Human Neurotypology and A Year of Haiku (both from Xlibris). They currently live in Nacogdoches, Texas.

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Ken Lauter.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Photo credits

Front and back cover: Judith Lauter. Interior: all by Judith Lauter, except for the following which are by permission or public domain: 1) Corn ears, Paolo Zanoni; 2) Tucson Skyline, Erik Hinote/EHFOTO.COM; 3) Volcano, Wikipedia, public domain; 4) San Francisco Peaks, Mt. Humphry, Rebecca Kennison, Wikipedia GNU/Free Documentation License.

Reasonable efforts were also made to solicit permissions for the following but met with no response: 1) Crow sketch, uncredited, The Dallas Observer; 2) Double Flute Player, John Hill, IMPACT PHOTOGRAPHY.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/15/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Introduction

SUMMER—1966

Migration

FALL—1988

Last Singer

Last Singer’s Story

Someone in the Canyon

Noise in the Canyon

The Rule of Silence

Last Singer

Canyon Romance

Canyon Gathering

Canyon Fate

Trees and